The Martians needed help, but Guilford couldn’t supply it. That battle would have to go on without him.
Unless this was a clarion call, he thought, this burgeoning pain in his chest, a sort of trumpet note. If he died, perhaps he would find Nick, find Caroline and Abby (if they were speaking to each other), find Tom Compton for that matter… walk that long road from Belleau Wood to the stars. Become a god, and the gods would be called to battle, which meant…
He sighed and listened to the bugs humming in the night. Billyflies probed the porch light, lives briefer than a day, generation after generation aimed like arrows into the dark. Ecclesiastes:
All the rivers run into the sea, but the sea is not full…
The sea
, Guilford thought,
is full of life.
And no time for grief, and too much to do. And only a moment to rest, to close his eyes, to sleep.